


Forged

by MayQueen517



Series: Pacific Rim scraps [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Art Thieves AU, Gen, Pacific Rim: Uprising did not happen, fic scrap, hashtag denial, or maybe art forgers idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 05:10:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14253714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayQueen517/pseuds/MayQueen517
Summary: Art thieves AU!One last job, Pentecost had said the week before. Raleigh shoulders his bag, trying not to think of the last time he had heard the phrase 'one last job.'





	Forged

**Author's Note:**

> So! This is all I ever managed on this one. I had grand ideas but once I started writing it, I only ever got as far as the first few scenes. I still really love it and I'd love to see a different take on it, so, y'know. 
> 
> Go for it? IDK
> 
> Just tag me on Tumblr, I'm over there as MayQueen517 as well!

A Herc Hansen forgery is something you never forget seeing. Raleigh stares at the canvas, still wet, looking for any inconsistencies. Yancy was a decent forger in a pinch, usually until something went completely pear-shaped. This, unlike any Raleigh has seen before, has zero flaws. He's not entirely sure how Herc did it and when he spots Herc, washing his brushes with a casual disinterest, Raleigh knows that he and Yancy would have been a force. Raleigh never had the head for it and he straightens, aware of eyes on him as he looks around the massive loft.

"Not quite what you were expecting, was it, Mr. Becket?"

Pentecost is immaculately dressed as always while Raleigh looks over the bright, open loft littered with canvases. Some are blank and some are halfway completed and in the middle of it all, stands Stacker Pentecost. 

Raleigh shakes his head.

"I'm used to this being in the bottom of a basement. Guess that's why we got caught," he says, shifting in place as Pentecost's face tightens though Raleigh couldn't say if it was from amusement or regret.

"Come and meet one of our brightest," Pentecost says and Raleigh is grateful to him for not saying anything placating about his brother or about that last job that landed him in lock-up for five years with good behavior. 

One last job, Pentecost had said the week before. Raleigh shoulders his bag, trying not to think of the last time he had heard the phrase 'one last job.'

===

A week before, walking out into the fresh air and the open sky without a fence around him, Raleigh remembers his brother properly. He goes to the storage locker that his sister had maintained for him while he was in jail and proceeds to pack his brother's things into a select few boxes.

Shirts and things that still make his chest hurt go into his own duffel bag as well as some pictures that Yancy was always carrying around - "Reminders, kid," Yancy had always said with that grin that always got them into trouble - before Raleigh is pulling the door of the storage unit down and locking it. He pockets the key and slings the bag around his neck, walking up to the start of the road. 

He hands the key off to the attendant at the top, watching it disappear into a drawer before he makes a phonecall to Stacker Pentecost.

===

Mako Mori, it turns out, is an accomplished forger in her own right as well as being in charge of knowing the alarm systems inside and out. Raleigh watches her examine her colors before she checks Herc's forgery against the wall. Watching her is something like watching a plan come together, Raleigh thinks with a smile, remembering the show that his Dad used to watch when he was a kid.

"You gonna keep staring or what?" Chuck asks with a sneer as Mako shoots an eye-roll over his head at Raleigh in apology. Raleigh shrugs, leaning onto the stack of boxes in the chair, watching Chuck play some ridiculous first person shooter game.

"Just wondering when you were gonna take out that sniper on your left, that's all," Raleigh says as Chuck scoffs.

"There is no - fuck!" he exclaims, character whirling as Raleigh grins over at Mako. Mako who washes her hands with a hidden smile, looking over at Raleigh from under her bangs.  
Chuck curses his game loudly, hissing through his teeth as Raleigh keeps his eyes on Mako. Mako dries her hands on a nearby rag before she steps over to the schematics of the alarm on the table.

"This is going to be difficult," she says finally. Chuck pauses the game and Raleigh wants to figure them out. He wants to know what makes them tick and for a moment he wonders what the hell he's doing here. The night before had felt right in some nebulous and intangible way as he lay on a bed (a real bed even) but now he feels that sick sense of doubt.

"How difficult?" Chuck asks, looking over to her. Raleigh wonders if they see the same thing, the paint still in her cuticles, the determination that wrinkles her forehead and the idea that's brewing somewhere behind her eyes. 

"Very," Mako says with vicious glee.

===

"Do everything right and we'll be on a beach this time Saturday," Herc says, leveling a calm glare at everyone around the table. He props himself on his knee, pointing out the various points of entry as Mako pulls up a schematic and sends it to the projector. 

Raleigh feels that same hunger in his belly that let him get taken in by Yancy's own last job - it's different now. He looks at Mako and Chuck and feels hunger race through his veins as though it's a part of him now and not just a drive. Before it was about the chase, the forgery and seeing just how good they were. 

Now it seems personal. 

"What happens if it goes wrong?" Raleigh asks as Chuck groans, rolling his eyes dramatically.

"Nothing's going wrong, Ray," Chuck sneers, "Just 'cause you're paranoid and off your game doesn't mean the rest of us are."

"You'd probably think differently if you'd been to jail."

"Well, we're not a couple of amateurs, now are we?" 

Punching Chuck, while satisfying, probably wasn't the best way to start a heist, Raleigh thinks later.

===

"Beckett," Stacker says, dangerously calm, "if you ever do something like that again, I will put you right back where I found you. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal," Raleigh says, mutinously watching Chuck hold a bag of ice to his nose, blood staining his teeth.


End file.
